Long time UFO investigator Gary Hart
commented tonight at The UFO Trail on the infamous Carpenter Affair. The
series of events involved the betrayal of some 140 individuals who sought the
support and services of John Carpenter and the Mutual UFO Network during the
1990's. The 140, including Leah Haley, underwent regressive hypnosis
facilitated by Carpenter, a former MUFON director of abduction research. It was
later learned Carpenter received some $14,000 in funding from Robert Bigelow in
exchange for ongoing activities and providing him and his associates, which
included Colonel John Alexander, with the case files of the 140. This was done
entirely without the knowledge or consent of the 140 individuals. Much more
about the Carpenter Affair can be read in the previous posts on the Leah Haley
case, including The Leah Haley Case: John Carpenter,
where Mr. Hart left the following comments:

Jack, as one of the principle reporters of the Carpenter
Affair I found your posts quite interesting, especially in regards to what Mr.
Carpenter had to say about everything. Perhaps I can clear up some few points
that Mr. Carpenter chooses to repeatedly ignore or twist to a brighter point of
view:

1) Mr. Carpenter originally wrote the section on handling
abductee cases in the then current edition of the MUFON Field Investigator's
Manual where he includes a sample form for the abductee to be presented with
and sign if they wish to give a researcher permission to use their case
material publicly. Mr. Carpenter, in a private communication, admitted that he
had never had any of the abductees he worked with sign this or any other form
of consent to sell or otherwise distribute their hypnosis files and that no
researcher he knew followed his own suggested procedure.

Some files such as Leah Haley's would have been instantly
identifiable even if Carpenter sold them without providing Mr. Bigelow with the
identity of the person associated with each file. As I found out and was
provided evidence of, Mr. Carpenter provided Mr. Bigelow with a name/case key
list and even though every abductee I spoke with said that Carpenter promised
he WOULD revisit them for their explicit permission to release any of their
file materials if necessary yet he never did.

2) I brought the Carpenter case to public attention only
after many of the abductees asked me to do so understanding that at that time
he planned to write a book about them and was ALREADY selling a video for his
personal profit that showed clips from some of their private hypnosis sessions
with his professional credentials prominently listed on the videotape's cover.

3) Carpenter claimed, in a legal statement through his
lawyer, that he did his hypnosis sessions as an amateur and thus could not be
held to professional ethical standards - a point also made to me directly by
then head of MUFON Walt Andrus. In fact, several of Carpenter's cases were
referrals from other medical doctors. LCSW, by the way, is a professional
designation - MO state Licensed Clinical Social Worker. MSW says that he has a
masters in social work. All abductees I spoke with were shown only Carpenter's
professional business card with these important licensing initials, not MUFON's
more ordinary Investigator's ID card so he was promoting himself as a true
health care professional.

4) Carpenter got to a point in the mid 90's where he double
billed abductees: he asked them for personal payment for their hypnosis
sessions and billed their insurance and there is proof of this.

5) Finally, as a result of my filing a complaint against
Carpenter's professional license because of his unethical handling of abductee
cases, he was put on 5 years probation by the State of Missouri and there is
online proof of this also so the state did agree with the case we collectively
presented to their investigative board.

MUFON still throws out the "we want to stop the
backbiting and infighting in Ufology" line as if there never has been a
legitimate legal issue with how MUFON board members and representatives (as
John was as their then Director of Abduction Research). This was the case MUFON
still would like to forget. This is the case that caused MUFON's Board in
2001 to vote and throw out the "member" designation so that from then
on persons affiliated with MUFON would be "subscribers" only and have
no voting rights as to how the organization does business.

Just to set things straight,

Gary Hart

Time Line of the Carpenter Affair

An abbreviated chronological order of relevant events,

composed with the assistance of Gary Hart:

Late 1980's: Springfield social worker John Carpenter was conducting regression hypnosis sessions with Missouri and Arkansas abductees.

Early 1990's: Carpenter
began working with Robert Bigelow on various projects. He soon began
intermittently requesting and receiving financial gifts from Bigelow.

1991: Leah
Haley became a hypnosis subject of Carpenter's and would eventually pay
him a total of $825 for the sessions. Carpenter was appointed MUFON
director of abduction research.

1994: Carpenter
wrote in a regional MUFON newsletter that his professional office would
be used for hypnosis sessions. Price and payment options were listed,
which included billing medical insurance companies.

1996: Carpenter reached terms with Robert Bigelow to exchange copies of abductee case files for cash.

1997: Carpenter's
former hypnosis subject and then-wife Elizabeth told abductees that
Carpenter sold their files. Abductees were livid. Elizabeth secured
evidence of the file sale, and divorce proceedings followed amid
accusations of various forms of professional misconduct (Carpenter would
later marry another of his hypnosis subjects). Carpenter and abductees
sought legal counsel. Carpenter's attorney claimed in a letter that
Carpenter collected abductee data for personal pleasure and was not
compensated.

1999: Hart heard rumors of the circumstances
and was given details when he met with some of Carpenter's clients while
investigating a UFO case in the vicinity of Springfield. They told Hart
about the file sale and that MUFON was doing nothing.

2000: Attorneys
representing the abductees dropped the case. Elizabeth temporarily
launched a website describing the Carpenter Affair, likely out of
frustration and to inform the public of MUFON inaction. Hart saw the
site, contacted Elizabeth and investigated the circumstances, including
interacting with several of Carpenter's disgruntled former clients. John
Velez reported on UFO Updates that Bigelow, Colonel Alexander
and others confirmed the reality of the Carpenter Affair. After
investigating the circumstances, Hart submitted verified details in a
formal complaint to MUFON, which continued to drag its feet and enabled
Carpenter to retain his MUFON position and activities.

2001: Hart
submitted a report and formal complaint to the State of Missouri
Division of Professional Registration. John Schuessler wrote in the MUFON Journal that
Carpenter vacated his MUFON position. Carpenter's license as a clinical
social worker was put on a five-year probation period.

Primary Source Verification

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